FLORENCE, ITALY – The Fountain of Neptune, located right outside the Palazzo Vecchio in the Piazza della Signoria, will be restored by Ferragamo. The International Florence-based fashion company has donated 1.5 million euros to be used over the course of a three-year period. The donation was possible due to the recently activated Art Bonus, a tool created by the Italian government to encourage corporate funding of art and culture restoration projects.
The Fountain of Neptune was commissioned in 1565 and is the work of the sculptor Bartolomeo Ammannati and it’s a symbol of Florence, despite of the first opinion of the Florentines, who called it Il Biancone (the white giant).
Ammannati (1563–1565) and his assistants, such as Giambologna, were commissioned to design and complete the work on the occasion of the wedding of Francesco I de’ Medici with Joanna of Austria in 1565. The assignment had first been given to Baccio Bandinelli, who designed the model but he died before he could start working on the block of Apuan marble.
The Neptune figure, whose face resembles that of Cosimo I de’ Medici, was meant to be an allusion to the dominion of the Florentines over the sea. It was the city’s first public fountain and is one of its most recognizable landmarks.
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